


By Halves

by Ramasi



Category: Dollhouse
Genre: F/F, Memory Alteration, Power Dynamics, Sex Toys, Snippet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-30
Updated: 2011-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-28 12:17:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/307799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ramasi/pseuds/Ramasi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As a test, Caroline is released again, with her memories of the Dollhouse removed; it doesn't take her long to track down Adelle DeWitt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Halves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yetanothermask](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=yetanothermask).



> Reference to Adelle/Roger and hint of Adelle/Echo as well.

She's proud of her doll who isn't a doll: so few memories in her head, not one, supposedly, that could have lead her back to her home, and yet in less than two weeks she's figured out who she needs to seduce.

When she came towards her at the bar, pushing through the crowd with such purpose that no-one could have mistaken her for anything but a warrior on the prowl, and dramatically underdressed, Adelle stood her ground, expecting careful questions or recriminations, or violence even; not this. And it's not the kind of romance she would have chosen, very different from the one she handpicked for herself. But for one night? to find out more about the person who, for all the tools of their technology and Topher's genius, seems to bleed through their doll, their active? to get to know the person who she remembers so vividly, sitting across of her on that first day, defeated and defiant?

She's all defiance _now_ , and determined energy that thrives on total lack of doubt (even stronger, perhaps, with the lost memories); someone less well informed and more conceited than Adelle might have thought this is due to the sex. In Adelle's own bed – she took her to her city apartment, not back to the penthouse –, Caroline towers above her, trapping her left leg between hers, completely naked, one hand buried in her hair, tugging, the other pushing it in deeper inside her, almost cruelly; her hair's dishevelled, and when she leans down again to kiss her, it's with more aggression than lust. Yet the wetness she can feel where Caroline rests on her leg tells a different story, and the dilated eyes, the ragged breathing, she would know if those were fake. Maybe it's the thought of the things she will find when she's made her weak that pushes Caroline, something sexual in her thirst for truth and action.

It doesn't matter now: this episode will be erased forever soon; when Caroline returns in full a few years from now, this interlude will be like one of her imprints. Adelle sees no reason to question it yet; there will be time for analysis later, if she chooses it. Now, she allows herself to be drawn together by rising pleasure; her body shivers all over with every new thrust; Caroline, above her, moves against her leg, eager, her eyes narrowed in such anger that it would be damning if Adelle didn't already know; beautiful, powerful in her very nakedness, and again the thrilling thought _I could switch you off anytime I want_ flashes through her mind, and: _I made everything you are_.

It's not quite true in this instance, of course: this isn't one of Echo's constructed personalities; this is Caroline a few memories short, dangerous and uncontrolled (but that is what Echo is too, according to Dominic, and he's not wrong, not exactly: it's just that control is better and more useful, sometimes, if it's subtle and distant enough not to be stifling – and what else is _this_?).

She gets closer, the light-headedness taking hold of her, want and pleasure making her dizzy, more unsafe and imperfect and intense than she's had in a long time, and she briskly thinks, when Caroline leans down over her once again, eyes flashing, on why she's chosen not to let anyone see her like this for quite a while.

"I remember who you are," Caroline hisses into her ear and pushes, and Adelle can barely hear her over the inner sound of her orgasm, spreading through her in waves.

Then she can breathe again, and she feels sated and grounded and calm, looking up at her opponent, with her dishevelled hair and her quivering lips, and still trembling with desire but very still.

"Not as well as I remember who you are," she answers, and pushes herself up by her elbows.

"Tell me," Caroline demands.

She's not armed, but she might as well be; Adelle has no doubt she could smash her head against the wall with barely an effort; she still has the strength, even if they took away the skills.

She shakes her head.

"You didn't want to remember."

Caroline keeps on glaring at her; Adelle expects her to protest, but they left her without a purpose this time, no grand escape to plan, just the stumbling blocks of daily life and the missing years. In a sense, she's surprised she hasn't latched to the first injustice she could find and never looked for herself; but Caroline's not stupid, for all that she's short-sighted.

"I remember _you_ ," Caroline says again.

This is intriguing, certainly, but it seems dangerous not to try and intervene.

"I could take you home," Adelle offers, and, meanly: "would you like a treatment?"

Caroline opens her mouth, then closes it as if in shock, and in an instant she's on her feet, backing away from the bed, eyes wide; she didn't look this hunted when Adelle closed on her that day, contract in hand.

"What did you _do_?"

Adelle shrugs, and leans forwards, retrieved the toy, stretches. They stare at each other. Maybe Caroline didn't come for information; maybe she's here to help her own memory go into gear, or for that moment when she'll let her know _you didn't get my whole mind_ , and now she doesn't _know_ what to do, and that's dangerous, so dangerous.

"What do you want, Caroline?" she says; patient, long-suffering.

There is no immediate answer, the confusion foreign on a face that is so clearly Caroline's, not Echo's. But in a moment, Adelle knows, Caroline will demand everything she has to give, things she hasn't even thought of, attempting to tear through her life, and she's proven good at that kind of thing, if careless. Adelle will have to have her taken home and erased early, and then watch her go blank and empty, malleable and soft, and too childlike and unreal for any desire.


End file.
